Multilateral Agreement on Investment - Part I

Corporate Empowerment Stonewalled with Media Silence

A treaty that has been dubbed "NAFTA on
Crack" and "The Corporate Bill of Rights" is also one of the
establishment's best kept secrets. The Multilateral Agreement on
Investment (MAI) is a treaty that is still being negotiated in Paris
and is scheduled to be signed by twenty-nine of the world's
wealthiest countries next April. In September President Clinton
presented his request for "fast track" treaty negotiating authority
to Congress, where a vote is expected on Friday, November 7. It is
thought by some that the president will use his new "fast track"
authority to ram the MAI through Congress next spring. The great
importance of this historic treaty may be defined by its cloak of
secrecy and the very fact that discussion of it is almost wholly
absent from the corporate news media.

What is the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)?

"The MAI is a new international economic
agreement being negotiated at the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). The MAI is designed to make it
easier for individual and corporate investors to move assets -
whether money or production facilities - across international
borders. The MAI would take the investment provisions of the NAFTA,
amplify these provisions, and apply them world-wide."[1]

Countries that sign the MAI next April
will agree to open all economic sectors, including real estate,
broadcasting and natural resources to foreign ownership. Foreign
investors will be entitled to the same treatment domestic firms
receive. Performance requirements restricting a foreign investor's
activities in exchange for market access will be removed. If foreign
investors' assets are expropriated through seizure or "unreasonable"
regulation, the government of the host country must compensate the
investor in full. Foreign investors may sue the host country directly
before an international tribunal when they believe that country's
laws to be in violation of MAI rules. Restrictions on the movement of
capital, into or out of the host country, are to be removed. Each
signatory government will be required to ensure that MAI regulations
are obeyed by state and local governments.[2]

Proponents of the MAI reside mainly within
the realm of the transnational corporations [TNCs]. The United States
Council for International Business (USCIB) has a membership of 300
>multinational corporations and is a key player in the formulation of
the MAI. Organizations such as the USCIB and its global counterpart, the
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) represent large corporate
interests at the OECD's secretive trade negotiations in Paris. Those at
the top of the economic food chain, as well as their representatives and
hirelings in government, say that removing impediments to foreign
investment will improve the efficiency of the global economy and,
thereby, benefit businesses, consumers and workers in the long run. This
"trickle down" prosperity has been the promise of twenty years of trade
"liberalization", which has only resulted in widening disparity between
the rich and the ever-increasing number of poor.

What Does the MAI Mean for the U.S. and the World?

The majority of U.S. workers have seen
their real wages decline 19% [in inflation adjusted dollars] since
1972. This resulted in the mother and other family members leaving
the house to go to work, with all working longer hours and taking
second and third jobs. Even as families work harder, it has not been
enough to reverse the decline in income. From 1989 to 1995 median
family income dropped 6% -- in the midst of the most extensive trade
agreements ever enacted.[3]

From 1979 to 1987 the incomes of the
richest 10% of U.S. population rose 21%, while the income of the
poorest 10% dropped by 12%. Between 1983 and 1992, 99% of the
increase in American wealth went to 20% of the population. In 1949,
the wealthiest 1% of the population owned 21% of all assets. Today
that 1% of the population own more than 40% of all assets. Between
1980 and 1995 corporate revenues rose 129.5%, with profits rising
205% and executive pay rising 500%.[4]
In 1950, corporations paid
26.4% of federal tax income. In 1995, that figure had fallen to
11.6%, with the remainder falling on wage earners.
[5]

One would think that trade liberalization
would at least help undeveloped countries that benefit from the
influx of foreign investment. Not so. Since NAFTA went into effect,
real wages in Mexico dropped 27% and more than two million workers in
agriculture, small businesses, and small industry lost their jobs
[6]
Since the MAI is a more expansive and global form of NAFTA, the
effects on the third world could be comparable.

These figures stand in striking contrast
to the Utopian prognosticators at the OECD who predict a rising tide
of wealth that will float all ships. As the "liberalization" of trade
practices over the past twenty years have unfettered global
corporations to work their will, the decimation of societies, the
break-up of families and the enslavement of the masses the world over
with a corresponding increase in corporate profits has been the
result. As the MAI joins NAFTA and GATT in consolidating corporate
conquest of the world's wealth, resources and human capital, working
Americans and the majority of those living in developed countries may
expect a Third World standard of living in the near future, and those
living in the Third World may expect more of the same.

A Global Era of Prosperity or a "Race to the Bottom"?

Some say that the global economy will be a
central pillar in the emerging global civilization. Their theory is
that material wealth, concentrated for so long in the developed
nations, will be redistributed among the world's inhabitants in a
more equitable manner, creating a renaissance from the squalor of the
Third World. As the world's living standards adjust to a point of
equilibrium, people will become more tolerant and accepting of
Western democratic values. More people, especially women, will
receive an education and encouragement to "produce, not reproduce".
As all classes are economically empowered, civil unrest and regional
conflicts will find resolution. The basic necessities of life - food,
shelter, healthcare, education, fulfilling work, a clean and safe
environment - will be within the reach of all. Living standards will
decrease for some, but the interdependent whole will benefit in the
long run. This is the propaganda line put forth by the globalist
bankers and corporate elite, picked up and carried forward by many
deceived but well meaning individuals who are doing the groundwork in
facilitating this great plan.

Instead of producing "Utopia", this
globalization effort will result in what is called the "race to the
bottom." Instead of a "rising tide" of material prosperity, global
living standards will be reduced to the lowest common denominator. As
national governments lose their ability to control the flows of
capital, as they most certainly will under the MAI, they will find
themselves groveling before the TNCs for their economic survival.

What is the Likely Scenario for the FUTURE Under the MAI?

The global work force will always have to
remain competitive with the lowest bidder in Bangladesh or Guatemala.
The real influence of organized labor is finished. The argument that
only low skilled labor in the developed countries will feel the pinch
is patently false. For example, India and the Philippines now produce
computer systems analysts and software designers that are very good
and work for wages that are a fraction of that received by their
American counterparts.

National governments will have to relax
enforcement of labor and environmental standards or lose foreign
investment. If "unreasonable" regulation affects the foreign
investors' profits, the host government (read "taxpayers") will be
bound under the MAI to fully compensate the investor. Government's
offending against the TNCs may find themselves sued before an
international corporate tribunal somewhere in Europe. An offended TNC
could suddenly pick up and leave town, removing all its capital and
triggering a collapse of that country's economy. "Market forces" as
manipulated by the TNCs and international finance are, in reality,
the world's dictator and democracy nothing more than a sham.

Natural Resources, Real Estate and the Broadcast Media Under MAI

Economic turmoil causes governments around
the world to appeal for help from the global bankers such as the
World Bank and the IMF who deliver bailouts that weaken or eliminate
that government's stewardship role over the national resources. Vast
deposits of natural resources, now safely locked up in national
parks, monuments and wilderness areas could conceivably be turned
over to the TNCs in exchange for debt maintenance and other economic
favors. Large and small tracts of private land throughout the world
will fall into the hands of roving, corporate capital as
property taxes become universal and economic dislocation deprives land
owners of a way to pay their taxes and meet the demands of
environmental regulations. Broadcast and media outlets in all
countries will be bought up by the TNCs, consolidating control over
the flow of ideas and information and reshaping societal mores and
values through the introduction of globalist, Orwellian ideas. These
developments and more are portended in the current draft of the MAI,
the treaty the news media won't talk about.

Out of 100 of the world's largest
economies, 51 of them are corporations and the preponderance of the
world's power has fallen to them. Contrary to the image they portray,
"corporations cannot care about particular places. They cannot even
care about human health. Nor can they care about democracy --
corporations are among the most authoritarian and undemocratic
organizations ever created. Corporate managers can only care about
short-term financial gain."[7]

In recent months there has been an evident
overlap in the concerns of individuals on both ends of the political
spectrum. Like the proverbial blind men trying to describe the
elephant, they have each described this many-headed beast that now
rules over the world. Many conservatives and constitutionalists see
an emerging world government that wants to destroy our national
identity and constitutional freedoms. Some of the so-called "left"
see a world ravaged by a polluting, despotic corporate elite,
destroying the quality of life and the environment by their rapine of
labor and natural resources and their unquenchable greed for more
money. Both sides are correct in their assessment and stand side by
side in their underestimation of the emerging order and yet remain
divided by ideology and semantics.

Like socialism, radical environmentalism
was conceived and promoted by globalist financiers. Their aim is to
destroy property rights and tread down individual liberties and
initiative. They will express concern for the environment when it
serves their political ends and when they achieved their objective,
they will use the environment to enrich themselves. Their motives are
the same in the cause of human rights. They will use human rights as
a wedge to force open a country's political system to their influence
and control, but events near Waco, in Panama and the Gulf region as
well as support for China all reveal their true concern for "human
rights". These insiders are possessed by an uncontrollable lust for
more wealth and power, and they cannot help themselves.

We are ruled by Big Business and Big Government as
its paid hireling, and we know it. Corporate money is wrecking
popular government in the United States. The big corporations and the
centimillionaires and billionaires have taken daily control of our
work, our pay, our housing, our health, our pension funds, our bank
and savings deposits, our public lands, our airwaves, our elections
and our very government. It's as if American democracy has been
bombed. Will we be able to recover ourselves and overcome the
bombers? Or will they continue to divide us and will we continue to
divide ourselves, according to our wounds and our alarms, until they
have taken the country away from us for good?
[8]

Over one-hundred years ago U.S. President
Rutherford Hayes may have seen the same elements at work when he
declared, "This is a government of the people, by the people and for
the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by
corporations, and for corporations."